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Tell the people of Scranton how grateful he is for the support over the last five years.

Tell them he couldn't have accomplished most of what he did without it.

That's the message from Eric Shrive, delivered after perhaps the final in-depth interview he'll give as a Penn State football player and when the finality of Senior Day finally started to set in.

Almost certainly, he didn't have football on his mind when he delivered that message.

The West Scranton graduate will be one of 17 seniors who will run through the tunnel at Beaver Stadium for the final time when the Nittany Lions host Nebraska on Saturday, and maybe more than any other player who will join him, he made an impact at Penn State.

He realizes, though, it's not the one most fans expected he'd make.

It doesn't seem like that long ago that Shrive came out of West Scranton as one of the top prospects in the nation. Back in 2009, some recruiting services considered him a five-star prospect, one of the very best offensive tackle prospects in the nation. He committed to Penn State just days after coaches from Oklahoma and Notre Dame visited him. Time has passed quickly, Shrive pointed out. Nobody seems to forget that.

His sheer size and success during his high school career didn't help him evolve into a superstar college player, though.

In his five years at Penn State, his biggest contributions on the field involved being a serviceable backup, a rare lineman capable enough of handling plenty of work wherever the coaching staff needed him. Joe Paterno's staff shifted Shrive between guard and tackle sometimes by the week during his first three seasons, and with depth considerations made reality by the NCAA sanctions, Bill O'Brien's staff kept him in that role.

When he made his first career start last week against Purdue, he actually lined up at tight end.

"I've been playing a lot the last two years," Shrive reminded. "And it has been very rewarding. Obviously, I was coming in here looking to start, looking to do some other things. But, I accepted my role, and I'm very thankful for my time here at Penn State, and for the free education I received. I think I took advantage of everything Penn State had to offer."

That doesn't mean Shrive didn't establish himself as an irreplaceable player on Penn State's roster, that he won't leave the university without having made positive history.

Shrive said the most bittersweet moment of the week leading up to his final home game had nothing to do with football. It came Monday night, when he and his fellow officers with Penn State's chapter of Uplifting Athletes voted in new leadership. Linebacker Ben Kline received the honor of taking over for Shrive as the chapter's president, and the redshirt sophomore will have large shoes to fill -literally and figuratively.

Shrive's work as president of Uplifting Athletes at Penn State has been groundbreaking, the road he took to get there inspiring. What started as a chance to give back to the community that supported him turned into a passion, and as part of Uplifting Athletes' Lift For Life event, Penn State players raised nearly $400,000 in Shrive's five years to benefit kidney cancer research.

Shrive, alone, raised more than $100,000, and the Kidney Cancer Association has praised him for being the most prolific individual donor to its cause in the nation. For his part, he said he did most of his fundraising in Scranton, and that the generosity of the people back home that helped him reach seemingly outlandish goals each year.

"It was something I got a little better at every year," Shrive said of his fundraising. "I was able to find a new role every year, to help out as much as possible."

As much as his work on the field, his work with Lift For Life and the Kidney Cancer Association has defined his career at Penn State.

Coach Bill O'Brien granted that, maybe, Shrive's playing career didn't work out the way he expected it would when he left Scranton. But on the practice field, Shrive brought a toughness that was difficult to match, setting an example for younger players on how to accept their roles within the team.

"I've developed a close relationship with Eric," O'Brien said. "Off the field, what else can you say about him? The work that he's done, especially with Lift for Life, and involving the younger players to teach them how to carry that tradition on. The amount of money he's raised for kidney cancer research, you just can't say enough about what he's done.

"I really believe that Eric Shrive will go on, and whatever he decides to do, he'll be a big success at it."

There doesn't appear to be any doubt in Shrive's mind where he's going to "go on" to.

Home.

He doesn't know exactly what he's going to do, but he knows he's going to do it back in Scranton. He has some job options, he said. Maybe, he'll ultimately try his hand in local politics. He may even want to help out as an assistant coach at the high school level sometime soon. In June, he will get married. The end of a football career won't mean rest for Shrive.

But when it comes to work, he says his real passion lies in what he can do to help others, and that means Shrive the fundraiser won't be taking a break, either.

"Something I'm going to think about the next couple of weeks is what's next for my charity work," he said. "There are a lot of kids in Scranton who are underprivileged. What can I do to help? I have a pretty good idea of something I want to do, but it's still to early to say. I have to get my life on track now, before I do that."

Contact the writer: dcollins@timesshamrock.com @psubst on Twitter

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